Monthly Archives: June 2010

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A shop that manages to be both extensive in its collections and still feel cozy, Jenni B. is an ideal boutique for scooping up special-occasion wear and investing in classic pieces upon which to build a wardrobe.

Look for Poetic License shoes — especially the divine, colorful summer strappies — and dresses and tanks from Kyumi and Voom by Joy Han. It feels a bit like Downtown L.A. fashion-district heaven, but this retail remix resides in the heart of Old Town Monrovia.

A hidden treasure in Pasadena, The Majestical Roof is not easy to find: Follow a sign off Fair Oaks Avenue, down a brick-road tunnel and into a quiet courtyard, where the boutique is tucked away on one side.

What happens when more than 500 artists go back to the drawing board — and the drawing board is a bunch of pavement in Pasadena?

The result is the Pasadena Chalk Festival, an explosion of color and style on the walkways of the Paseo Colorado shopping center. Face-painting and designated areas for kids to try their hand at their own variety of beautiful chalk art make this event a Father’s Day weekend classic.

The Pasadena Chalk Festival this year will also attempt to set a world record for largest display of chalk pavement art.

Breaking up is hard to do. Above, “Fork in the Road” artist Ken Marshall tries to separate a resistant Bob Stane from the 18-foot wooden sculpture, as it was relocated from its seven-month home at the intersection of Pasadena and St. John avenues.

The dramatic tableau was all playacting, of course. The Star-News’ Janette Williams reports the fork is headed for greener pastures — aka refurbishment — and a new life somewhere.

Stane, of Altadena’s Coffee Gallery Backstage, and the “Fork in the Road” Gang surely have something up their collective sleeve for the mammoth utensil.

World Cup opening day is upon us, and, in celebration, The Bar at The Langham Huntington Hotel & Spa is now serving up nightly specials and inspired takes on street food from around the globe.

The World Cup “Kickoff” promotion includes The Langham’s signature cocktails and an upscale bar-food menu crafted by Chef Erik Schuster (that’s him, at left).

Each dish represents a different World Cup competitor country, and weekly face-offs will pit one country’s menu item against another. (This week is England’s fish and chips against the U.S. “Dirty Dogs.”)

Exciting news for Pasadena foodies: The original L.A. Street Food Fest is coming to the Rose Bowl on July 24.

There will be more than 55 food vendors, including all the top mobile-gourmet food trucks, old-school carts and stands, celebrity chefs and street-inspired dishes from L.A. restaurants. Added to the mix: Two beer gardens, cocktails and tequila tastings.

And, this time around, the food fest will be better equipped to handle the overwhelming demand that’s inevitable when every sought-after food truck is gathered in one locale — along with beer gardens, cocktails and live music. Organizers say they’ve worked out the kinks in the system that, at February’s event, created massive wait times and prevented some people from getting into the festival.

The exhibitions are dual: One looking back at the fascinating domain of patent models in the 1800s, the other looking forward to the future of objects conceived on computers and sprouted up by machines. One revolution has already changed the world; the other soon will.

Image, at top: This printed rose began with a high-resolution scan of a real rose, and was then printed at Art Center on a 3D Systems’ V-Flash 3D Printer, in which a photo-polymer resin is cured by UV light, in micro-thin layers, each one four-thousandths of an inch thick. (Photo credit: Steven A. Heller / Art Center College of Design)